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Like Mae West, the stock market seems to believe that too much of a good thing can be wonderful. Extraordinary central-bank support has delivered us in four short years from the brink of depression to new stock-market highs. Yet there are those who hope our Federal Reserve will keep printing money with crisis-era urgency, preferably indefinitely.

The Fed has vowed to coddle us until unemployment falls below 6.5%, but new, noisy stock-market highs make it harder to justify printing money like it's still 2009. "It wouldn't surprise us to see the Fed change its tone toward the end of this year, or more actively in 2014," says Tim Leach, chief investment officer at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. Other money managers say we're nearing the sixth or seventh inning of central-bank benevolence.

A shift from exceptionally loose monetary policy would rattle the market, but it might not prove all that debilitating. For a start, any change will come at a glacial, well-telegraphed pace. And while the Fed tripled its balance sheet, not all that money gushed through to the real economy—one reason why inflation is just 2%—as banks funneled the money to mend their balance sheets, corporations hoarded cash, and Americans paid off loans and saved more.

Between 1960 and 1999, ratcheting up the supply of money often directly lifted stock prices. In the 1970s, for instance, stocks' annual returns were 70% correlated to the growth in money supply. But that link has recently broken down: year-over-year growth in money supply slowed in 2009 and 2012, but stocks rallied in both of those years. "The stock market may fare much better than most expect, as the Fed begins to normalize monetary policy," says James Paulsen, Wells Capital Management's chief investment strategist. After all, what spooks investors these days isn't inflation or runaway growth but deflation, and a less anxious Fed signals that the deflation threat is receding.

Already, we're on firmer footing. The Standard & Poor's 500 was at 1469 just this January—the same level where it began this century. Yet earnings and dividends have doubled in the 13 years since, slashing the market's valuation from 30 to 14.7 times what companies earned in the preceding 12 months. Household net worth has repaired with firmer real estate and rallying portfolios, and home building, auto sales, and state tax collections all are improving. Unfortunately—or it is fortunately?—gross-domestic-product growth remains wan enough to keep monetary policy loose.

Many investors also remain underinvested in stocks, although margin debt is climbing, and bearish bets have shrunk to a six-year low. Two of the year's three best sectors—both with gains topping 10%—are health care and consumer staples, another sign that stock buyers remain defensive.

Meanwhile, political impasse has deferred—but not destroyed—economic growth. "Despite uncertain fiscal policy, business confidence is off the lows, and investment is accelerating, if new orders are any indication," notes Sean Darby, Jefferies' chief global equity strategist. Most sectors are using more of their capacity than a year ago, notably electrical equipment, autos, and mining. Business lending is increasing, and Darby expects rising capital expenditures to benefit machinery, truck makers, chip equipment, and factory construction.

Alas, a sustained, secular bull market—one robust enough to withstand economic cycles—remains elusive. The 1982-to-2000 bull run, which was interrupted but not stopped by the 1987 crash, began only after deregulation, loosened labor unions, and grim interest-rate hikes had choked off inflation. "Ultimately, it was the shift from short-term fixes to the righting of long-term imbalances that paved the way for a new secular trend," says Jack Ablin, BMO Private Bank's chief investment officer. Yet despite two grievous recessions since 2000, the government continues to attack our fiscal and debt imbalances "with a putty knife and plaster."

Ablin thinks stocks "can keep going until we run out of short-term policy tools," or until the Fed gets nervous that it's perpetuating an equity bubble. But a decades-long, secular bull will only coincide with "a willingness to tackle the politically unpalatable," he says. "Since politics is oriented toward the short term, the difficult choices will likely be forced on lawmakers by the markets." Tough choices rarely occur when we're celebrating new highs, but another leg down is a different matter.

FINDING TOO MUCH OIL and gas under our rocks has been wonderful for the local economy, but it's straining existing infrastructure and transport (see "Climb Aboard the Oil Train"). That's one reason that pressure is mounting on the Obama administration to allow the 1,179-mile, cross-border Keystone XL pipeline that will link Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Neb., and the rest of the Keystone network.